Christmas Around the World!

We've been having lots of fun, getting in the Christmas spirit in second grade.  This year my team implemented a Christmas around the World Unit, and each of our 5 classrooms took a country to teach about!   I used this great packet from Across the Hall in 2nd Grade for my country!  Scandinavia!
We read and did the books from this packet, and I added a craft to make Nisse the Gnome who brings gifts to the kids in Norway if they leave him some porridge.  The kids are having a blast and enjoying their travels!

                                             
                                               

 Next week is the craziness of parent gifts, holiday parties, and sing a longs!  Can't wait!

The Process of Writing

My second graders are working so hard to follow the writing process...brainstorm, draft, edit, final copy... rinse, lather, repeat.  Oh wait!  It seems that every year I have a handful of students that struggle with capitals and punctuation!  We spend the first few weeks of school going over complete vs. incomplete sentences, and learning about CUPS!

I use the above process with my students to help them remember what to look for when editing.  I have this poster hanging in my classroom!  We talk about what each letter stands for and we edit some sentences at the beginning of the year.  Capitals and periods, capitals and periods...I sound like a broken record! Wait...Mrs. Driscoll--what's a record!?

As the children are working through their own editing, I give them a CUPS slip to help them be more independent in their editing! As the check their writing for each letter, they can check it off on their CUPS slip.  

Sound helpful??  You can check this packet out in my store!  I have a CUPS editing packet.  It includes this poster, and student CUPS slips.  It also has some beginning of the year activities to practice each skill!

Check it out in my TPT store!

Too Tall Tales!

I love tall tales!  It is one of my favorite things from grade school, and add in the old Disney tall tales cartoons...  It brings me fond memories of my elementary school days.   Common core asks that students recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.  So I thought, perfect way to incorporate tall tales into our second grade ELA curriculum.  Our first grade team works with fairy tales, so we can build on that learning with this genre!
I utilized some A to Z readers that we have in our book room.  Luckily I was able to find a book for each level of my guided reading groups.  We spent our guided reading time, reviewing the elements of a tall tale and each group worked cooperatively to create a poster about 'their' tall tale character. I modified an idea I found at Totally Terrific in Texas and created posters that focused more on the elements I wanted them to be able to pick out that were part of a tall tale.  
Here's how they turned out!  

We also incorporated activities from MANY great packets out their on TPT.   To coincide with our tall tale unit for shared reading I used the book Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa After reading the tall tale Pecos Bill, we used Cowgirl Kate as part of our shared reading.  This book is on the common core stories list for text exemplars.  I also created my newest packet on TPT to go along with this book!  I hope you check it out!  

Read Alouds according to....Mrs. Driscoll

I can remember as a student having teachers share stories with me.  One of my all time favorites as a third grader was James and the Giant Peach...that was back in the day before the movie version!  So, I love being able to share favorite books with my own class.  Last year I found such a great book, I know it will become a yearly share for me.   Here it is: Humphrey is such a great share with my second graders!  Last year, I was getting my ESL endorsement when I began reading this book to my class.  We were discussing understanding children's culture and family--and this book couldn't share this lesson any better!  Humphrey's class is a perfect blend of multicultural and differing family dynamics and you travel along with Humphrey to learn about each student.   This year, with the push of finding time to 'fit it all in'... no such thing!  I found a way to fit it in as part of intervention time.  My group is children who are meeting or exceeding the testing for this quarter.  While I would love to share with my entire class, a few miss out when they go to their intervention.  I love the calls of 'Are we reading Humphrey today?' and 'Can we read a chapter today?' as the kids come in for intervention.  I love the sound of creating book lovers!  I read a few chapters each week and I also use an excellent packet on TPT by  Tracey Schumacher at The Teacher's Chair It has at least 1 response sheet or activity for each chapter and covers a variety of reading skills. Even my own second grader is in LOVE with Humphrey.  We have several of the other Humphrey books by Betty Birney.  They are all good!!  Our school had a storybook pumpkin patch and he chose to create a Humphrey Pumpkin!  We even used a Wee-Be-Little pumpkin of course!  So cute!  He was getting a little nasty here...but even had his own pencil and notebook!

As we have finished our read aloud in intervention,  We brainstormed the different adventures that Humphrey went on in the story.

Then the students worked to make a poster to advertise their favorite part of the story!  

They illustrated and wrote about their favorite part of the story.Here's some of the finished products!

Here's my 2nd Grader's poster!  He loves when Humphrey swings on the blind cord to get back to his cage!

MIA!

So where have I been??  Man on man October was a busy month for me!  And my poor blog has been neglected!!  First of all, school was in full swing--busy, busy, busy!  I spent part of the month getting my report cards ready, making sure I had data and assessments on all the items I needed to grade!  And then there's the comments!  I know that it's my own little issue, but I always want parents to feel like I know their child, I want to include comments that make parents feel like I really care and understand their child.  I know that's what I would love to feel when I read my own children's report cards. We entered the world of middle school this year for my daughter, so I'll have to settle for straight A's from that---  

but of course I couldn't be prouder!  I just wish there was a little insight from the teachers letting me know 'hey Emily's a great kid' or something!   The big guy did just as well!  Love that he's a good reader, even though I know it's not his favorite!  Math is his thing, and he's also doing a great job with that too--even with that dreaded common core!  In fact he and my husband, who I call the human calculator, should be the poster children for common core math....they both think in the way common core is trying to teach us.

So what have I been up to in class???  We have been busy learning about animal classes!  Mammals, fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles!  Had a great time taking our second graders to the local zoo!

The kids always love this unit and we are finishing up this week with animal reports and models!   One of my favorite activities was painting fish to learn the parts of a fish...

We drew the fish together, and while we took turn painting our fish, the students worked on writing 'Fish Facts' about what they had learned.  I absolutely love this activity and was inspired by this post a at  Turnstall's Teaching Tidbits!   

As a school, we always have fun events going on each season.  In the fall each classroom created a scarecrow outside their class.  I am not much of a scarecrow builder, but I had to personalize it to my second graders!  So of course, we had to add some special 'second grade crows!'

They were a big hit!  The kids cut out a circle and folded it, they were surrounding our 'not so scary' scarecrow!

This past week we learned about reptiles!  We read Sea Turtles by Gail Gibbons, and the created these Sea Turtle Life Cycles!

These are from this great packet by Robin Sellers!

On a personal level, I ALWAYS have a lot going on in October!  I love the season and spending my weekends with my favorite fall activities!

We visit this pumpkin patch every year since my daughter was little!  This is one of our traditions, from 2 to 11, I can even imagine where the time has gone!

AND I turned 40!  A whole new decade for me.  I had set my goal to have my blog and TPT store up and running by the time I turned 40 and goal accomplished!  Kudos to me!

My good friend over at First Grade on the Brain made me feel very special by giving me a decorated room on that day at school

And the wonderful office staff posted this for all my fellow teachers to help me celebrate!

That's me in 2nd grade!!

And of course, Halloween!  We had fun with trick or treating.... my devil and battery!

Last but not least, we also celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary on Halloween as well...and I got a new set of wheels!  16 years is the automotive year, right??

So here's to more frequent posts in November!  I am working on a big unit for the Common Core Text Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa, and I am really excited about it!  

Hope you all enjoyed your October!  I know I did!